The Semine Factory was established in1976 in what was then Semine Town as a manufacturing factory for the Coromant Department of Sweden based Sandvik group, which has business operating in 130 countries around the world. Our main products are special ceramic coated super hard throw away chips used for metal cutting.
In early 2000, a rumour claiming that production cost at the Semine Factory was the highest in the group and that control of the factory might be transferred from Semine to China and that it might be closed down began to circulate. On that occasion, for the first time ever in the Coromant Department, a top Japanese representative pooled efforts with the employees to bring about innovation in manufacturing aimed at preserving the Japanese factory.
 The problems at the Semine Factory were manufacturing costs and the lead time (LT). To solve the problem of the 21-day lead time and the accompanying high labour costs, we undertook an inspection of the manufacturing process, adopted a management system and worked at reducing the lead time. In addition, based on proposals from our employees, we did a full review of the layout of the factory, sticking red tags on unnecessary items and then clearing them all out. This “red tag operation” created a lot of empty space.
All of these efforts bore fruit. In August 2000, the Semine Factory finally achieved its 10-day lead time (LT 10). Even now, we have not lost our focus and we continue to improve. Our current lead time is 7 days (LT 7), the shortest in the company group.
We improved manufacturing costs above the levels in China and achieved the shortest lead time in the company group while maintaining high quality. The ideas and efforts of the employees at the Semine factory produced respectable results. Because of that, we have won the status of being one of the top 3 factories in the Sandvik group, along with Sweden and America.
In the meantime, products made in Semine are transported by trucks over land to Narita Airport, from where they are delivered by airplane to the Singapore distribution centre. In addition, we have also proceeded to add more facilities to the empty spaces, the outlook from now on is to increase our capabilities and, together with our staff in the wealthy natural environment of Semine, Kurihara City, we plan to continue producing manufactures as one of the factories in Asia. |
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